Founder of Shorinjiryu Shindo Budo Kwai Karate, Kyoshi Michel Laurin, has completed a new action movie in which he is starring.  The below is the theatrical trailer for the movie, The Ninong.

Kaicho Watanabe of Shorinjiryu Kenyukai Watanabe Ha Karate is also making a cameo appearance in the movie.

I am not sure of any other details at this time, but will post when I hear of the release dates, etc.

Haven’t been posting much lately, for a number of reasons.

One of the key ones has simply been that I was blocked from posting due to some software that was doing too good a job of blocking spam – it just blocked everything.  Thats fixed now, and hopefully we’ll be back online now with more regular posting.

There’s also a new issue of the newsletter in the pipeline, and there are two upcoming interviews for The Applied Karate Show podcast.

Doing the rounds on the web at the moment is the wonderful Mikka Bouzu series of comics about a martial arts student travelling the path.

I think I identify with this one….

Greetings and welcome to The Essential Karate Blog, and the associated newsletter.

My name is Des Paroz, and I am a long time practitioner of a style of karate called Shorinjiryu, founded by Shinan Kori Hisataka (1907–1988).  Over the years, I have had the fortune to live and train in Japan, and also to train in dojos in Japan, Okinawa, the USA, Spain, Switzerland and my native Australia.

Along the way, I’ve had a strong personal interest in karate’s histories, traditions, philosophies and personalities, as well as of course the techniques and applications.

I am also a strong believer in the concept of Shin Gi Tai – the development of mind, technique and body.  In this regard, I am an advocate of strength and conditioning for martial artists, particularly using the kettlebell.

In this blog, newsletter I hope to share some of my experiences and opinions in karate, kobudo and kettlebell practice, so that others may read, consider, debate and challenge those.  I believe that through this we can all learn.

I have a small karate dojo in Sydney, Australia (the Kengokai Dojo), and am a member of Shorinjiryu Kenyukai Watanabe Ha Karate Australia.

I should also mention that I am the host and producer of a podcast called The Applied Karate Show, another vehicle which explores similar themes.  In that podcast, I have the good fortune to talk with a variety of people far more knowledgeable than I about karate and related arts.

Please feel free to comment on any of the topics. I look forward to any discussion and feedback.

Our web feed can be found at http://feeds.feedburner.com/EssentialKarate.

Nice post over at Total Karate on Karate Fads.

Having seen all those things come and go I realised the same old art is still sitting there letting the fashions and fads wash over it like waves at the beach.

There is a nice discussion on fads like “pressure points”, “bunkai” and “underlying principles”.

Nice sum up as well

There is no need to “train for this” or “train for that”. Training for itself and for your own purpose is good enough.